The Celtics season has been now put on a little bit of a hold, and for the worst reason.
Sure, the team might play tonight against the Heat with half of their roster missing. But, along with the Philadelphia 76ers and a few other teams around the NBA, the Celtics have let the coronavirus enter their locker room.
After Rob Williams tested positive on Friday, I found it pretty odd that the Wizards game was played later that day. It seemed as if the safest thing to do would be to postpone the game out of an abundance of caution, like the MLB did whenever even one person on a team tested positive, but yet the game went on as scheduled, and you have to wonder whether Jayson Tatum had the virus when he took the court.
We’ll see, probably today or tomorrow, whether anybody else on the Celtics or Wizards tested positve. Bradley Beal, who Tatum closely interacted with during and after the game, entered the protocol yesterday. Half of the Celtics roster now sits in limbo, and hopefully they can get enough negative tests to return soon. But all you can do is hope.
Right now, I think the NBA is learning a lot about how they should deal with the virus moving forward, specifically when it comes to postponing games. They need to pick a path; either keep and improve upon the current protcols but risk giving teams little chance to win (like the Sixers yesterday against Denver or the Celtics tonight against the Heat, if the game gets played) or be less reluctant to alter the schedule and ensure that each team has a fair shot in every game, like the MLB. It creates a huge mess for the schedule makers, but if the MLB can do it then anyone can.
In the NFL, however, they havne’t postponed games because of any competitive disadvantage. As long as you had enough players, you played. Oh, you have no quarterback? Too bad. Go out there and be the whipping boy so maybe you’ll learn to to be safe next time.
And that’s what the NBA has done so far as well, albeit with the first spreads only just beginning to infiltrate the league. Oh, two of your starters are in the protocol, Philadelphia, and you don’t want to play your injured superstars a lot of minutes? Too bad. Give Tyrese Maxey 45 minutes (and he was actually really good, so maybe not the best example) and suffer the consequences.
It’s a little different in the NFL, though. Games only get played once a week, rosters have more players, it’s easier to separate the different position groups, and it’s outside. In the NBA, similar to baseball, a team plays a game every other day. But unlike any other sport, basketball players are constantly next to one another, either on the court or in the locker room.
Once one guy gets it, multiple close contacts are inevitable and subsequent positive tests cannot be treated with shock. And by the way, are you honestly telling me that Grant Williams and Tristan Thompson were the only close contacts to Rob Williams? I doubt it.
Going back to the Celtics, I really hope this virus episode doesn’t derail what has been a great season so far. Of course that isn’t the number one priority right now (that would be the health of Tatum, Williams, and any others who test positive) but it would be devastating nonetheless if the rhythm of the season got interrupted and the Celtics were never the same again. But that feels a little bit too negative and overreactive, so I’ll tone it down.
Here’s something on the bright side: after the Miami game tonight, the Celtics have a really easy schedule. So if there was going to be one time that half the roster contracted the virus, it might as well be when you play Chicago, Orlando twice, and the Knicks in the next week.
And Jayson Tatum could be back for a January 20th game against the Sixers. Maybe things will be back to normal by then. But who knows? Any team, it seems, could get the virus at any point. I trust Jayson Tatum to be safe, and even he got it.
Which brings me back to Rob Williams. If Tatum got COVID-19 from Williams and still played on Friday night, then the NBA has a huge problem with their protocols. I still can’t understand why the NBA went through with that Wizards game on Friday.
You had a player test positive earlier in the day, a few players out for contact tracing, but the majority of the roster still available to play? Just because they weren’t close contact, that means they were fine? Or did they really get negative tests that fast after Williams tested positive? And couldn’t you still test negative even if you had the virus because sometimes it takes time to show up on a test?
I don’t know. Like Doc Rivers, I’m not a doctor. But I do know that it sucks that the Celtics have seemingly become the NBA guinea pig for COVID-19 protocols. Even though the Sixers were without half their roster too yesterday, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid didn’t play due to injury, not the virus. Only Seth Curry tested positive, with a few others still awaiting results. I guess someone had to be the first team, but I’m not a big fan of it being the Celtics.
Ugh. This stuff sucks. I wish I could just write about the games, but unfortunately that will not be possible until this pandemic ends, and who knows when that will be. I hope Rob Williams isn’t a superspreader, and I hope he got the virus by accident.
But if he was reckless, I hate to say it, but shame on you. You know I love you Rob, but there’s no other thing to say right now. If you were licking toilet bowls in the North Station bathrooms, there’s no excuse for that.
I will end by saying this: now with a few of these virus scares in professional sports under my belt, it always seems a lot worse in the moment than, say, a few weeks or a month after everybody recovers and can play again. Of course, it’s not a guarantee that these guys will be OK, but fortunately only a few athletes have had serious complications (like Keyontae Johnson and Eduardo Rodriguez). I hope that keeps up.
And if the Celtics picked a game to get absolutely throttled, at least it came on a day with three NFL playoff games. Always gotta find some silver lining.
CHILL YOURSELF DYLAN WOODS 